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Lewis Hamilton on pole in France, Sebastian Vettel only seventh

LE CASTELLET, France — Lewis Hamilton seized pole position for the French Grand Prix in track record time as Mercedes, chasing their 10th successive win, swept the front row of the grid in dominant fashion on Saturday. The Formula One world championship leader was 0.286 seconds quicker than team mate Valtteri Bottas. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc qualified third with team mate Sebastian Vettel a distant seventh on a distinctly off day for the German. The pole, in a time of one minute 28.319 seconds, was a record-extending 86th of Hamilton's career and his third of the season. "I'm happy that I got the potential out of the car, the team did a fantastic job," said five-times world champion Hamilton, last year's winner from pole at Le Castellet's Paul Ricard circuit. "We've just been chipping away at improving the set-up of the car," added the Briton, who is 29 points clear of Bottas after seven races — all won by the pair. Hamilton also triumphed in the last two of 2018. Bottas was fastest in the second phase of qualifying but could not match Hamilton's sizzling pace when it mattered in the final shoot-out. "The wind changed direction and there was a couple of corners my line didn't work and I had to work it out but Lewis had a better lap," said the Finn. Mercedes have looked to be in a class of their own all weekend, with Hamilton or Bottas fastest in every practice session with Leclerc, rather than Vettel, consistently the best of the rest. Vettel struggled, backing out of his first hot lap and then failing to string together all the sectors smoothly on his second attempt. "I don't know what happened, I lost so much momentum there was no point to finish that lap," said the German, who starts behind the Renault-powered McLarens of British rookie Lando Norris (fifth) and Spaniard Carlos Sainz (sixth). "Some laps it felt good and others it didn't. I didn't get the best out of the car but it was difficult for me, but some laps I didn't have he grip I had before." Vettel's time of 1:29.799 was eighth tenths of a second slower than Leclerc's best. Leclerc, who starts with Red Bull's Max Verstappen alongside, asked the team over the radio to get Vettel to speed up but the Monegasque said his lap had not been compromised. Australian Daniel Ricciardo starts eighth for Renault and Red Bull's Pierre Gasly lines up ninth for his home race with Italian Antonio Giovinazzi 10th for Alfa Romeo.

Daimler rebuffs Geely offer to buy stake

HONG KONG/BEIJING - Daimler AG has turned down an offer from China's Geely to take a stake of up to 5 percent via a discounted share placement, as the German automaker has long been reluctant to see existing shareholdings diluted, sources with knowledge of the talks said. A stake of that size would be worth $4.5 billion at current market prices. Although Daimler declined the offer, it told Geely it was welcome to buy shares in the open market, the sources added. Carmakers in China have embarked on a flurry of dealmaking, as they scramble to boost production of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles ahead of tough new quotas to be imposed by Beijing, which wants to reduce urban smog and lower the country's reliance on oil. People with knowledge of Geely's thinking said the company was keen to access Daimler's electric car battery technology and wanted to establish an electric car joint venture in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province. Geely, which also owns Swedish car maker Volvo, is still hopeful it can secure a deal in some form over the coming weeks, they added. The two automakers met in Beijing in recent weeks at Geely's behest. There, the Chinese firm, formally known as Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, offered to take a stake of between 3 percent and 5 percent if Daimler would issue new shares at a discount, the sources said. It was not immediately clear what kind of discount for the shares Geely had in mind or whether Geely was interested in buying the shares on the open market. A spokesman for Geely declined to comment. A spokesman for Daimler said the company was "very happy with our shareholder structure at present", but added that it would welcome new investors with a long-term interest in the company. Shares in Daimler were up 1 percent in early Wednesday trade, in line with the broader market.DAIMLER ALREADY TIED TO BAIC, BYD Geely, which has a market value of some $32 billion, is the leading domestic brand in China with a 5 percent market share, according to an analysis by Nomura Securities. A stake of 5 percent would establish it as Daimler's third-largest shareholder behind the Kuwait Investment Authority and BlackRock, who hold 6.8 percent and 6 percent respectively, according to Reuters data.

Mercedes F1 to use Qualcomm 5 GHz WiFi for its tire data

In Formula 1 you need more of everything. More speed, more grip, more hospitality, more money. And you need data, reams and reams of data. The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 team – the guys with the silver cars driven by 2015 F1 champion Lewis Hamilton and his teammate Nico Rosberg – need so much information that they've teamed with Qualcomm to wirelessly upload thermal imaging data of its tires. During a typical race weekend Mercedes's two racecars will generate approximately half a terabyte of data. Live telemetry has been a feature of Formula 1 for 20 years, though there are more restrictions on it than in the past. (In the days leading up to last weekend's United States Grand Prix in Texas, Formula 1 major domo Bernie Ecclestone said that F1 needs to cease being an engineering war and return more responsibility to the drivers.) Nevertheless, F1 teams gather vast amounts of data during a race weekend, particularly in practice sessions during which restrictions on what they can upload from cars – from engine/power unit parameters to aerodynamic loads – are less prohibitive. For example, during a typical race weekend Mercedes's two racecars will generate approximately half a terabyte of data. Mercedes F1 technical director Paddy Lowe points out that the standard telemetry system simply doesn't have the bandwidth to handle the thermal tire imaging data that the onboard thermal cameras generate. Why do you want a thermal video of the tires? Because it tells the engineers and drivers precisely how much temperature there is across the surface of a tire during a lap, in corners and on the straights. It also indicates how quickly the tires come up to temperature and when they potentially overheat. Understanding the temperature variations allows the team to set the cars up optimally for grip and tire life during a stint. Qualcomm's system works with the race cars like this: Each car has forward- and rear-facing cameras in a winglet mounted on the left side of the engine intake behind the driver's head, which continuously record thermal images of the tires. As a Mercedes enters the pit lane, it passes a Qualcomm 802.11ac WiFi receiver to which it uploads the thermal data. As the car nears the garage, another receiver takes over the upload. Several Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processors crunch the raw data as it uploads. The data is encrypted – there are always prying eyes in Formula 1.